August 6

2016 Regional Meetings

August 7

Campton Hills, Illinois

Antique Tool Show & Sale 9am-1pm. Members of the Midwest Tool Collectors Associationand the Early American Industries Association display, trade, and sell antique and collectible tools. $6 adults/$3 children

2014 Regional Meetings

September 13th 2014 ‘A Smithy and A Foundry Man’ Perry Hall, Maryland
EAIA Flyer and Form can be downloaded here.

Regional Meeting Planning Guide

Plan a Regional Meeting, have Fun, and help EAIA!

by John H. Verrill, Executive Director

What does it take to hold a regional meeting? If you have an idea for a program, consider organizing a local event. Meetings make a significant contribution to the EAIA by providing an opportunity for the exchange of information and recruitment of new members.

The first step is to contact the EAIA office about six months prior to holding the event in order to get it on the calendar. After that there are a few simple steps to follow.

Identify a host organization. There are many history museums and historic sites that have facilities and welcome projects which will promote their organizations and attract visitors. Minimum requirements are:

A parking lot of sufficient capacity to accommodate visitors and tail gating

Collections or exhibitions that will be of interest to our members

A staff person or volunteer who will be the contact at the museum

Next, contact the chairperson of any regional tool collectors groups and invite them to participate and work with them to choose a date.

After these initial contacts are made, plan a program for the day. A typical program might include tool trading from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., a business meeting for any of the participating organizations could be held from 9:30 to10 a.m., the main program, and lunch. If there are other sites, antique shops, or tool dealers in the area that members may like to visit, have that information available for attendees. A good program might be a lecture, display of private collections, guided tour of the museum or behind-the-scenes inspection of museum collections.

Regardless of the size of your program, you will need to develop a budget. Expenses for the day must be covered through registration fees. Costs you might anticipate are group admission to the museum, coffee and doughnuts for the tool sale, a box lunch and an honorarium for a speaker. Based on the total costs and your best estimate of the attendance, you can then set the registration fee.

You will need help with the meeting from some other EAIA volunteers to take care of registration and to man an EAIA information table.

Publicity is important. There should be notices published in Shavings and the newsletters of participating organizations. Send press releases to local news- papers, too. Post it on Face Book and other social networking sites. We will post it on the EAIA webpage, and we can send emails to members in your region.

Preside at the meeting. Someone must play host, welcome guests, make a pitch for EAIA, trouble shoot, and settle any accounts.

Finally, send a report to Shavings, and give someone the task of snapping a few photographs.

If you are interested just give me call and I’ll be happy to walk you through the process. You can phone me at (703) 967-9399 or e-mail eaia1933@verizon.net